Just interested in the Hollywood’s biggest stars? TIFF’s got plenty of them. Hoping to see what will likely be next year’s Best Picture Oscar winner? TIFF’s got a pretty good track record of picking that too. Only want docs? No problem. TIFF’s doc selections marry celebrity with thought provoking subject matter. In the mood for thrills and chills? TIFF’s Midnight Madness program pushes the envelope.

So there’s a lot to chew on — cinematically speaking — as the biggest film fest in North America gets ready to unspool.

And even though we love to find hidden gems, we’ve sifted through all the titles — there’s 343 of ’em — headed to Hogtown to bring you the biggest and most intriguing films coming to this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

2. Ben Is Back (Special Presentations) A long lost son (Lucas Hedges) with a history of drug abuse unexpectedly returns to his family’s suburban home on Christmas Eve morning. But the boy’s mother, played by Julia Roberts, soon learns that her son is “still very much in harm’s way.”First screening: Saturday, Sept. 8, 6:30 p.m. — Elgin Theatre

Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges star in Ben is Back.

3. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Special Presentations) Melissa McCarthy stars in this real-life story about a marginally successful celebrity biographer, Lee Israel, who resorts to forging famous letters after she falls on hard times. “It’s just a really beautiful story about these people that you pass on the street and they’re almost invisible,” McCarthy tells the Sun. “I love every little piece of it.”First screening: Saturday, Sept. 8, 2:15 p.m. — Winter Garden Theatre

4. The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (Special Presentations) Quebec wunderkind Xavier Dolan makes his much anticipated English-language directorial debut starring Kit Harington, Natalie Portman, Thandie Newton, and Canadians Jacob Tremblay and Sarah Gadon. The film traces the relationship between a young actor (Tremblay) and the TV heartthrob (Harington) he idolized as a child.First screening: Monday, Sept. 10, 6 p.m. — Winter Garden Theatre

5. Driven (Special Presentations) Lots of money, lots of drugs and the inevitable crash and burn. Driven charts the meteoric rise and fall of John DeLorean and his iconic DeLorean Motor Company. Lee Pace plays DeLorean in this inspired by true events film that recounts the story of the man who created the vehicle every car connoisseur craved in the early ’80s. Jason Sudeikis, Judy Greer and Corey Stoll also star.First screening: Monday, Sept. 10, 9:30 p.m. — Princess of Wales Theatre

7. Fahrenheit 11/9(TIFF Docs) Michael Moore’s most renowned work, Fahrenheit 9/11, skewered the U.S.’s war in Iraq. Here, nearly 30 years into his career, the documentarian shoots darts at America’s 45th president, Donald Trump. “Hope is passive,” Moore said about the movie in a recent interview with the Huffington Post. “Hope leads people to believe that tax returns, or a pee tape, or the FBI or an adult film star will save the country… We don’t need hope. We need action.”First screening: Thursday, Sept. 6, 8:45 p.m. — Ryerson Theatre

8. First Man (Gala) Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle reteams with his La La Land leading man Ryan Gosling for a big screen retelling of Neil Armstrong’s race to the moon in 1969. “It’s hard to imagine the magnitude of risk, the potential for failure, and the improbability of success when a few pioneers decided to leave Earth entirely,” said Gosling during a presentation at CinemaCon earlier this year.First screening: Sunday, Sept. 9, 2 p.m. — Ontario Place Cinesphere

10. Green Book (Gala) Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen hit the road in a tale about a black classical pianist on a concert tour of the Deep South with his white driver. The film is directed and co-written by Peter Farrelly, who is known with his brother Bobby for comedies like Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary. Something tells me we won’t be laughing.First screening: Tuesday, Sept. 11, 6 p.m. — Roy Thomson Hall

11. Halloween (Midnight Madness) Michael Meyers returns in David Gordon Green’s direct sequel to the 1978 original that starred Jamie Lee Curtis. Co-written by funnyman Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down), it’s a fresh take on the Halloween franchise that ignores all the other Halloween sequels (all seven of ’em). “We came up with a story that we thought was worthy of following that classic horror film and we went and pitched it to John Carpenter and he dug it,” McBride told the Sun in an interview. “He’s excited by it and he’s given us his seal of approval.”First screening: Saturday, Sept. 8, 11:30 p.m. — Elgin Theatre

13. Homecoming (Primetime) Julia Roberts makes her first foray into episodic TV with this series that follows a caseworker in a military reintegration facility as she helps vets returning from war. The series will premiere in November on Amazon Prime Video. First screening: Friday, Sept. 7, 5:30 p.m. — Ryerson Theatre

15. Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy (Gala) Laura Dern plays the real-life Laura Albert, who became a literary sensation writing as a teenage boy under the pen name JT Leroy. After she experiences runaway success, Albert is forced to recruit her sister-in-law Savannah Knoop (Kristen Stewart) to play her LeRoy character in public.First screening: Saturday, Sept. 15, 6:30 p.m. — Princess of Wales Theatre

16. The Lie (Gala) Toronto-born writer-director Veena Sud returns to the territory she mined for her series The Killing and Seven Seconds in a story that follows two parents (Peter Sarsgaard and Mirielle Enos) who must come together after their daughter tells them she’s killed her best friend.First screening: Thursday, Sept. 13, 6:30 p.m. — Roy Thomson Hall

17. Monsters and Men (Special Presentations) Drake is set to introduce this drama that examines the fallout after a black man is shot by Brooklyn police. The buzzed-about film stars John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman and son of Denzel Washington).First screening: Thursday, Sept. 6, 9 p.m. — TIFF Bell Lightbox

18. The Old Man and the Gun (Special Presentations) Robert Redford stars as an aged bank robber in this based-on-a-true-story heist movie that’s also his supposed last role ever. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Redford said he wanted to “go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive,” adding that the character he plays — Forrest Tucker — “appealed to my own sensibility, which has a slightly outlaw side to it… if I look back at my own life, I was always struggling against bounds that tie you down.”First screening: Monday, Sept. 8, 8 p.m. —Elgin Theatre

19. Outlaw King (Gala) Netflix will open the fest with the world premiere of Outlaw King, a historical drama that reunites Chris Pine with his Hell or High Water director David Mackenzie. Outlaw King bills itself as the untold, true story of Robert the Bruce who went from defeated nobleman to outlaw hero during the oppressive occupation of medieval Scotland by Edward I of England. Outgoing director and CEO of TIFF Piers Handling promises the film “is rich in drama, excitement, romance and adventure.”First screening: Thursday, Sept. 6, 6:30 p.m. — Princess of Wales Theatre

20. The Predator (Midnight Madness) Shane Black’s latest instalment in the Predator series comes 31 years after the 1987 original and promises a storyline that connects to all the movies, including sequels that came out in 1990 and 2010. The new film follows a ragtag crew of ex-soldiers (led by Boyd Holbrook) and a disgruntled science teacher (played by Olivia Munn) as they band together to fight off the deadly Predators after a young boy (Room’s Jacob Tremblay) accidentally summons them back to Earth. “(The Predators have) gotten smarter and stronger and people are going to see that,” Munn told the Sun in an interview last year. Sterling K. Brown, Trevante Rhodes and Keegan-Michael Key also star.First screening: Thursday, Sept. 6, 11:59 p.m. — Ryerson Theatre

21. The Public (Gala) Emilio Estevez (’memba him?) directs a star-studded cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Christian Slater, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright and Michael K. Williams in an Occupy-themed story that captures a standoff between homeless people inside a public library on a freezing cold night in Cincinnati and the police that want to evict them.First screening: Sunday, Sept. 9, 2:30 p.m. — Roy Thomson Hall

22. Quincy (TIFF Docs) Rashida Jones and Alan Hicks peel back the curtain for an intimate look into the life of music icon Quincy Jones. Shot over the course of three years, the narrative weaves together a look at the man who mentored and cultivated the careers of young talents, from Michael Jackson to Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith.First screening: Sunday, Sept. 9, 2:30 p.m. — Princess of Wales Theatre

23. ROMA (Special Presentations) Five years after the TIFF premiere of his Oscar-winning Gravity, festival fave Alfonso Cuaron returns with a semi-autobiographical story that chronicles the turbulent year in the lives of a middle-class family in 1970s Mexico City. Filmed in black and white, Cuaron told IndieWire recently that the drama is the “most essential movie” of his career.First screening: Monday, Sept. 10, 5:30 p.m. — Princess of Wales Theatre

24. Sharkwater Extinction (Special Event) Toronto documentarian Rob Stewart, who died while making the film, delivers a follow-up to 2006’s Sharkwater that unveils the continuing corruption behind the massive illegal shark fin industry that is leading to the extinction of our oldest remaining living predator.First screening: Friday, Sept. 7, 2 p.m. — Roy Thomson Hall

26. A Star Is Born (Gala) Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut is a remake of the 1937 romantic-drama features himself as a country singer-songwriter struggling with alcoholism until he meets Lady Gaga’s character, Ally. They fall in love, but this is the movies — we know their future is anything but certain. The cinema classic has been remade twice before, including a 1954 version with Judy Garland, and a 1976 rock musical that featured Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.First screening: Sunday, Sept. 9, 6 p.m. — Roy Thomson Hall

27. 22 July (Special Presentations)Bourne series director Paul Greengrass trains his lens on the 2011 Norway terrorist attack in this searing docudrama. Employing the same narrative technique he used on his 9/11 film United 93, Greengrass revisits the horrific attack that killed 77 people with stunning realism.First screening: Saturday, Sept. 8, 4 p.m. — Elgin Theatre

28. Vox Lux (Special Presentations) Natalie Portman stars as Celeste, a woman who goes from a major national tragedy to worldwide pop superstardom. The film features original songs by Sia and co-stars Jude Law.First screening: Friday, Sept. 7, 12:30 p.m. — Elgin Theatre

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